


A Favorite Color

by lodge_andrews



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 13:35:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15842340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodge_andrews/pseuds/lodge_andrews
Summary: At 12, Veronica Lodge thought it positively medieval that to find your soulmate means to rub lips with a hoard of randoms until one magical kiss gives you the magical ability to see color.Or a Cheronica Soulmate AU.





	A Favorite Color

 

At 12, Veronica Lodge thought it positively medieval that to find your soulmate means to rub lips with a hoard of randoms until one magical kiss gives you the magical ability to see color.

She was fine seeing in black and white, thank you.

At 13, her best friend Rachel came to school one day talking about her first kiss, and how suddenly "orange" the leaves were at Central Park, and she had no idea what orange looked like, but she was damn curious.

At 14, Rachel was talking about wearing an "olive green" dress to their freshman homecoming, oohing and aahing at how the color matched so well with her skin tone. It was at this time that Rachel forced Veronica into a "navy blue" number - what navy blue was, she had no clue - and the look of awe in her best friend’s face said it all.

Veronica Lodge was no longer fine seeing in black and white. 

At 15, she’d just about kissed every boy - and a few girls - in her high school, but she still had no clue what Rachel meant when she showed her her fingernails painted “pink.”

At 16, her father gets arrested and her mother whisks her away to a town called Riverdale. She’s angry, she’s resentful, and if this is what people mean when they say they’re seeing “red,” then she hates the color already.

-

She and her mom get to Riverdale, and her mom explains her new school to her - the Riverdale Bulldogs, blue and gold. Her mother has been seeing color since she was 14 and an eighth-grader in Riverdale. Except her mother hadn’t met her father yet at the time, and when Veronica asked who made her mother see color, she was dismissed by her father and sent to her room without dinner.

On her first day at Riverdale High, everything is just as black and white. She figures the halls were drenched with the school colors, but she can’t know for sure.

A girl called Betty Cooper shows her around, and she guesses this girl can’t see color yet either, as she speaks nothing about blues and golds and pinks, oranges and reds. And if she were being honest with herself, this Cooper girl didn’t look like someone who’d be going around plastering her mouth to every pair of lips she sees. Veronica decides she likes her already.

A blur catches her sight from the corner of her eye. A pair of pale legs, a swirl of long hair, the swing of slender hips. When the blur in question turns, she’s faced with plump lips pursed in pure distaste, chestnut eyes narrowed, and a chin held up high. Veronica didn’t have long to look, for the blur disappears as quickly as it appeared.

“Who was that?” Veronica asks her decidedly new best friend.

“That's Cheryl Blossom. She’s terrifying as it is in black and white, I’m afraid to see her in color.” Veronica should be pleased to have an ally in the black and white world with Betty, but she can’t help her mind from wondering what the long hair and plump lips would look like in color.

-

Betty introduces her to her neighbor, an Archie Andrews with an innocent face, bright smile and trusting eyes, and his odd friend with an even odder name - Jughead Jones. This Jughead didn’t even look up from his lunch, and she can’t tell if this annoys her or comforts her knowing people didn’t care as much about her incarcerated father as she feared.

She sits with them at lunch and listens patiently at silly Archie’s silly story about how his dog Vegas chewed up his brand new guitar. The boy drones on and on and she finds herself more interested in the mush on her cafeteria plate.

That is until the previously spotted blur made her way to their table and took the liberty of sitting right across Veronica.

“Veronica Lodge. I heard whisperings.” And somehow she can’t tear her eyes away from the hypnotizing movement of those lips. She shakes herself - she doesn’t know what she’s thinking.

The blur - Cheryl Blossom - spins away with an invitation for cheerleading, and she has to stop herself from jumping right into tryouts, if only to see her again.

-

No, she is not attracted to Cheryl. No, it was merely intrigue. Cheryl is to Riverdale High what Veronica was to her old high school - mean, cruel, feared by most. Yes, she was merely fascinated by being on the receiving end, being an observer on the outside. It was the only explanation that made sense to her.

So how come her heart skipped a beat when Cheryl invited her and her friends over to Thornhill for a party?

-

Spin the bottle? What are they, twelve?

In the circle are Veronica, Betty, Archie, Jughead, Archie’s football teammate named Reggie Mantle, some other kids she hasn’t been introduced to yet, and Cheryl.

The Thornhill mansion looks menacingly dark, even in black and white, and she wonders what colors surround one Cheryl Blossom day in and day out, wonders if Cheryl can even see color.

Can Cheryl see color? The small spark of hope that she feels, Veronica tells herself, is just hope that there is another teen in this small town who can’t see color. But she’s afraid she needs more convincing. 

It’s her turn to spin. Thankfully she hasn’t been sent to the closet by another player yet. She spins the cherry cola bottle on the oakwood table, and she has to quiet the voice in her head that’s wishing for seven minutes with a certain high school queen bee.

She doesn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed when it lands on naive little Archiekins.

She goes into the closet with Archie in tow, and misses the quickly masked look of longing shot her way from the Thornhill resident.

She kisses Archie like she kissed all the other boys in her old high school, and somehow she knows that when she opens her eyes after seven minutes, the world will still be shades of black and white.

She and Archie emerge from the closet and Reggie cheers, but his hollers are quickly silenced by a visibly upset Cheryl.

“Enough, Reginald! It’s my turn.”

The bottle seems to spin and spin without plans of stopping, and while she’s just got out of the closet (merely literally, she tells herself), Veronica itches to go back in with the current spinner.

A split second of silence as the bottle indeed lands on the new girl, followed by even louder hollering from the guys in the circle.

“Holy shit, that shit is hot! Yo, Blossom, can I get in on that?” Reggie cackles, but his laughter ends when a throw pillow hits his face.

Veronica watches as Cheryl rolls her eyes at the football player and proceeds to stand up from the couch. 

“Well, Lodge? Are you going to just sit there or are you coming in?” If Cheryl was at all nervous, it didn’t show.

-

When the door closes behind her, Veronica becomes hyper aware of how small the closet is. Was it this small when she was in here with Archie not even a minute ago?

“Listen, Lodge, don’t get any ideas - “

She can’t fathom what sort of traitor force made her do it, but Veronica propels herself forward and finds herself locking lips with Cheryl freaking Blossom.

Her heart is pounding, legs are shaking, as she brings her sweating palms to the back of Cheryl’s head. And somehow she knows. She knows that when she opens her eyes, she’ll see the oranges, the pinks, the blues and golds that everyone keeps talking about. She knows that as soon as she pulls away from the irresistibly soft lips of Cheryl Blossom, there would be no way of turning back. Her world would be changed forever.

“I’m afraid to open my eyes,” Cheryl whispers when they break apart, foreheads still touching, eyes tightly shut.

“Me too,” Veronica admits. She doesn’t know what she was expecting, but when her eyes flutter open, the first thing she sees are lips - in a color she can only describe as fire. She moves her eyes a little to the side and sees that Cheryl’s hair is of the same color. 

“People always told me they were red. So this is what red looks like,” Cheryl murmurs in awe.

“It’s beautiful.” Veronica decides she doesn’t hate the color red after all. In fact, she decides it’s her favorite color.

**Author's Note:**

> Written during an hour-long flight. My apologies for the short length, I just really miss these two. :)


End file.
